The World Customs Organization Permanent Technical Committee has approved a draft of e-commerce technical specifications, and the package will next face review with the Policy Commission in June and the WCO Council soon after, said Ana Hinojosa, WCO director-Compliance and Facilitation. Hinojosa spoke via video at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's annual conference on April 17. There are also some discussions on e-commerce planned with the World Trade Organization, she said. "They have invited us to participate in some of their workshops and we're very interested in us to engage in their process as well," she said. "We're hopeful that those conversations will be fruitful and something will come out of that."

Canada will appeal the portion of the World Trade Organization panel that went against it in a softwood lumber antidumping penalty dispute, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland announced April 15. The decision, which she said questioned some aspects of the U.S. duties' calculation, did allow for zeroing, which had always been ruled out of bounds in previous WTO cases (see 1904100046). "We firmly believe that the U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber are unfair and unwarranted. That is why we are challenging these duties at the WTO and under NAFTA," Freeland said. "We welcome the recent WTO panel ruling that the United States did not follow the rules in calculating its anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber.... Canada will be appealing the WTO panel’s separate findings on the U.S. practice of zeroing and its use of the differential pricing methodology." She noted that the WTO has ruled against zeroing more than 20 times.

Now that the World Trade Organization has ruled that Russia was justified in blocking transit of Ukrainian goods across its territory under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade's national security exception, lawyers are trying to project how a different panel will view the U.S. use of the same rationale for its steel and aluminum tariffs.

The U.S. says the World Trade Organization is hobbled and Roberto Azevedo, the director general of the WTO, said the conversations around reform are gaining momentum. "I think we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew the trading system," he said at a speech April 11 at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Inaction would compromise the relevance or even the existence of the system as we know it." Among the U.S. complaints about the international body are that the WTO's rules are inadequate for dealing with China's myriad subsidies and that countries can self-designate as developing countries, thereby avoiding concessions in negotiations.

A World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel ruled against some aspects of recently imposed antidumping duties on softwood lumber from Canada, though it upheld the Commerce Department’s use of “zeroing” in situations in which it finds targeted dumping. The WTO panel took issue with how Commerce arrived at its decision that Canadian companies were engaging in dumping targeted at particular purchasers, regions or time periods. But it found Commerce’s subsequent application of an alternative calculation method -- which included the use of zeroing -- did not violate WTO rules. The trade body has previously ruled against U.S. use of zeroing under normal circumstances, where no targeted dumping is alleged. Zeroing generally results in higher AD duty rates because instances in which goods were sold at above-average prices are ignored. The panel’s decision is subject to appeal.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's proposal to tariff up to $11 billion worth of goods from the EU as part of a long-running dispute over aircraft subsidies (see 1904090031) adds some new tension to an already fraught trade relationship. Although the trade dispute resolution that the U.S. is asking for pertains to large commercial airplanes, it goes far beyond aerospace, hitting cheeses and other food, wine, clothing and building materials. “This case has been in litigation for 14 years, and the time has come for action. The Administration is preparing to respond immediately when the WTO issues its finding on the value of U.S. countermeasures,” USTR Robert Lighthizer said in a news release.

United Steelworkers Canadian Director Ken Neumann and Quebec Director Alain Croteau say that quotas on Canadian steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. are not acceptable, and that Canada's parliament should not ratify the new NAFTA until the tariffs on the metals are lifted. “The federal government, Prime Minister Trudeau himself, and all party leaders must be very clear with the Americans that this trade agreement will not be ratified until tariffs and quotas are removed from the equation,” Neumann and Croteau said in a joint statement March 22.

As long as the trade talks are limited to industrial goods -- which does include fisheries under World Trade Organization rules -- European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said she thinks the talks could conclude before the current commission leaves office in late October. Malmstrom was visiting Washington to talk to her counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and to give a speech at the Georgetown Law International Update.

China's financial support to its wheat, short-grain and long-grain rice farmers is valued at more than 8.5 percent of the value of production, and therefore is more generous than what China said it would do when it joined the World Trade Organization, a WTO dispute panel ruled. The report, which said that China pays a minimum price for these commodities, was circulated at the WTO on Feb. 28. The case was first filed in 2016.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing sidestepped questions on Feb. 14 about President Donald Trump’s remarks suggesting he might be willing to let the March 1 deadline “slide” for raising the 10 percent Section 301 tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports if U.S and Chinese negotiators are close to reaching a comprehensive trade agreement. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are in Beijing for the latest round of trade talks. “We all hope that a deal could be reached,” the spokesperson said. “At present all we could do is ensure that the two delegations could concentrate on having a good round of consultation and work for a mutually accepted and mutually beneficial outcome, which is also to the benefit of the world.”